(AP Photo/Greg Wahl-Stephens)The Fayetteville-Manlius Girls cross country team, for the fifth straight year, placed first in the championship race at the Nike Cross Country Nationals in Portland, Ore., Dec. 4.

The success of Fayetteville-Manlius runners can be attributed to four simple concepts, which Coach Bill Aris reveals as: 1. Eat healthy, 2. Get your rest, 3. Train properly, and 4. Aspire to excellence.

"It's really that simple," he says in today's Post-Standard. "The kids who buy in are usually the ones standing on the podium at nationals."

F-M has dominated the sport of cross-country on local, regional and national levels and the girls team recently won its fifth consecutive national championship at the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland Oregon, placing five runners among the top 29 overall. The boys finished second nationally in a separate event.

Post-Standard writers Tom Leo and Donnie Webb report that F-M's performance was so dominating in Oregon that Aris says there were rumors of performance-enhancing drugs. "I laughed at first when I heard it, but then I got a little irritated that people would insinuate that about our clear, honest, sincere and very clean program."